Night Shift
by OceanTiger13
Summary: The Joker holds up a McDonalds.


Disclaimer: The Joker, McDonald's, Gotham aren't mine, but the OC's and the idea are.

Oneshot, T for sheer terror

1st Batman fic, have fun!

Night Shift

You meet all sorts of weirdos on the night shift. Mob lackeys, junkies, former Arkham inmates…it can get pretty creepy. I should know.

Like many Gotham establishments, the McDonald's on North 52nd Street was a veteran fast food joint, the victim of armed robberies, break-ins, and even one murder, back during the days of the mob.

I thought I had seen it all, working on the night shift.

At least, that's what I thought until I met _him_. The new class of criminal.

It was ten thirty, pitch black outside but glaringly lit indoors. There were several customers—a few bored-looking teens by the window sipping milkshakes, an old man reading the newspaper, and a haggard-looking mother with two toddlers and a baby in a stroller.

I was behind the cash register, resisting the urge to yawn, tapping my foot to the quiet music coming from one of the ceiling speakers, up over my head and to the right, as Kale flipped burgers in the back.

I twisted a strand of black hair in my fingers, glad it was Friday—I could go home and sleep in after my shift ended. I needed sleep. A lot of it. A down-on-her-luck freelance writer tends to be sleep-deprived, especially in today's economy, when working double-jobs takes away most of one's free time.

The yawn I'd been trying to suppress finally escaped my lips, and I lifted my hand to my mouth, shutting my dry eyes for a moment, imagining the warm, soft bed back at my apartment and Lucy, my cat, meowing contentedly as I walked in the door—

The idyllic fantasy in my mind was instantly shattered along with the glass door as the sound of automatic gunfire ripped through the night.

I recoiled, flattening myself against the soda fountain in shock. From the back I heard Kale curse, and the crash of several pots and pans. The haggard-looking mother in the dining area screamed, grabbing her children and holding them close to her, both toddlers crying and the baby wailing piteously. The old man with his newspaper slipped off his seat and landed with a thump on the floor, his eyes wide and surprised. The teenagers by the window leapt to their feet, all of them staring at the door…where someone was entering.

It was a man. He wasn't particularly tall, but he was scary just the same, clad in a suit of some dull, dusty, purple fabric, his ear-length hair dyed dark, chemical green and messily greased back, his face painted clown-white with thick, black circles around the eyes and a red slash across his face, the corners of which tapered up in a ghastly smile.

He stepped into the restaurant, his shoes crunching on the broken glass, his head sweeping from side to side as he surveyed the room, his shoulders hunched, like a vulture.

For a moment he remained silent, and kept looking around the room, catching the eye of almost every person there. When he glanced over at the teens, one of the girls, a pretty, skinny, blonde thing whimpered and buried her face in her boyfriend's neck.

The clown man laughed, an unhinged, dangerous laugh, and then spoke.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!" he cried, causing everyone to shrink back even more. "This is tonight's entertainment! Remain calm and make no sudden moves, and you might all get out of here alive." He chuckled to himself, as if this was all some sort of funny joke.

I had been trying to make myself as small as possible, shrinking back into the soda fountain, wishing it would just swallow me whole. Dr. Pepper started to trickle down my back as I accidentally backed into its button.

The clown man chuckled again, and then turned around to face me. It was then that I noticed the scars.

Beneath the red slash that served as his smile, knotted, ropy scars curved up from the corners of his mouth, as if someone had stuck a razor between his teeth and slit open his cheeks.

I swallowed as he smiled and approached the counter.

"Hi," he said, as if greeting an old friend, taking the automatic in his hand and pointing it at me. "C'mere."

I hesitated, my mouth dry. It felt as if my feet were glued to the floor, while my heart hammered out a violent drumroll.

The man bobbed the automatic up and down impatiently and repeated himself. "C'mere."

Feeling as if I was walking to the guillotine, I forced my legs to move, and crossed the tiny space between the counter and the soda fountain.

The clown man's smile turned into a frighteningly sincere sympathetic expression—the kind you see on the faces of international reporters interviewing starving people in third-world countries.

"You look frightened," he said, like a parent consoling a child who has just had a nightmare, "Is it the scars? Let me tell you about 'em."

And before I knew what was happening, the automatic was gone, and I was being dragged halfway over the counter by the jaw, with a knife hovering in front of my mouth, and the clown man's face a foot away from mine. He was grinning.

In the background, I heard someone—probably the mother or the blonde teenage girl—let out a squeak of fright, and then the sound of footsteps drawing near.

"Ah ah!" the clown man said, abruptly glancing over my right shoulder, "No sudden moves or I'll carve a smile on your pretty friend here's face."

_Oh no…_I thought, _Kale._

Kale had always been a hothead, a guy with something to prove to Gotham's criminals, having lost his little sister to a mugger when he was twelve. (Not to mention the fact that he'd been trying to get me to go out with him for the past year and a half.) If he could take his revenge now, on this guy, I knew he would do it.

_Don't move, Kale, don't move, _I pleaded him in my head.

Apparently, Kale had stopped moving, because the clown man turned his attention back to me.

"I had…" he began, licking his painted lips, "…an older cousin. Reeeal jerk. Family bully. And I was the littlest cousin. I was the easiest target." He readjusted his grip on my jaw, pulling my face closer to his. "So…it's the Fourth of July, and the family's gotten together for a _big_ barbecue and _fireworks_. And during the fireworks, I realize that I gotta go to the bathroom. So I go inside, thinking that everybody else is outside. Thinking that I'm all alone." He licked his lips again. "But I'm not. It's my cousin, and he's gotten into the liquor cabinet, and he's goin' off _crazier_ than usual. So I grab a kitchen knife to defend myself. Well, he doesn't like that. He goes and takes the knife and sticks it in my mouth. And he says, '_Why so serious?'_ And he grins at me and goes, '_Why so serious? Let's put a smile on that face.' _So…" The clown man grinned, pressing the tip of his knife to my trembling lips. "…Why…so…serious? Hmmmm?"

I swallowed, and slowly opened my mouth to speak.

When I did, my voice was almost unrecognizable, I was shaking so hard. "W-what do you want?" I asked, in a terrified whisper.

The clown man laughed his unhinged laugh again, throwing back his head as if I'd just told him the funniest joke in the world.

"What do I want!" he repeated, giggling madly, "What do _I_ want!" He let go of my jaw, pushing me back over the counter so that I staggered into the soda fountain.

He grinned, taking out the automatic rifle and pointing it at me again. "What do I want." He glanced up at the menu for a moment, reaching into his pocket and slapping a hundred-dollar monopoly bill onto the counter.

Then he leaned forward and said, innocently, "…I just want my burger. You can keep the change."

FIN


End file.
